Safe Travels with Kids

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Hey there! I'm Jessica. I think that motherhood should be savored, like a good piece of chocolate. But sometimes it feels like more duty than delight. Am I right? I'm working to change that. Read more about me here and this blog here.

Are you heading overseas on a vacation or planning ahead for next year? Take heed of these tips for safe travels so that your trip will be fun and secure.

Life gets busy and, sometimes, a long-anticipated trip sneaks up on you. You might find yourself not as prepared as you wish you were. Been there, done that more times than I can count.

Over the last month or two I’ve had two friends head off to Europe, and I got to share some tips with them that made our European vacation so amazing. Surprisingly, I was able to tell them things they didn’t know already. They’ve both traveled internationally before, but not as recently as I had. Times change, apparently, and all those hours surfing the internet paid off!

Anyone could hop in a plane and be able to enjoy travels through Europe without a ton of preparation. In fact, if you’ve got the money, you could buy whatever you need there. Easy peasy.

But, it takes a little preparation and thought to make sure yours are safe travels. Whether you go alone, with a friend or spouse, or take the whole family to Europe, safe travels are super important, but particularly so when you’ve got kids in tow.

You don’t need to worry about whether or not you can find a rain coat. If you need a rain coat overseas, you can always buy one. But getting pickpocketed, having your identity stolen, or losing a member of the party? Those are things that a little advance preparation can help you prevent.

If there’s an international crisis, you need to know what to do, not just for you, but also for your kids. A few steps toward safe travels will make the trip more fun with fewer things to worry about.

Safe Travels with Kids

If you’re heading off on a trip soon or planning ahead for a trip next year, consider these tips for safe travels:

Check with the state department.

Make sure that your destination doesn’t have any government-issued warnings for disease, unstable political activity, or questionable safety for tourists. The more you know, the better you can prepare. It may require extra immunizations or delaying your trip, but better safe than sorry.

Make copies of your passports and other travel documents.

In case your passports are lost or stolen, be sure to carry back-up copies. I emailed a copy to myself and to family as well as packed hard copies in my documents folder. Knowing that I had back-ups, made me a little less nervous about the real deals, despite the fact that I wore them constantly or kept them in the safe.

Call your bank and credit card company.

Basically, you need to be safe and have some money. All the other travel-y things can come as they may.

But that money part? Call your bank and credit card companies to let them know that you’ll be making transactions abroad. You don’t want them to block legitimate transactions or let a fraudulent purchase in Spokane go through.

While you’re at it, ask them which overseas ATM’s you can use fee-free. This is super important. Fees add up in a jiffy. Trust me.

Buy an RFID wallet or money belt.

Nowadays, it’s not just your entertainment that’s “virtual”, petty theft is as well. You can have your pocket “picked” without losing your wallet. Thieves use electronic devices to swipe the information off your cards and phones — without taking it from you! They just need to walk close enough to you to get a reading off your cards.

Call your health insurance.

While you might never plan on a medical emergency overseas, it’s important that you contact your health insurance provider and find out the protocol for receiving care overseas.

Since we knew a serious allergic reaction was possible, I documented everything I would need to do to get care for my daughter in case it did occur and checked each location ahead of time to see that there was medical care available.

Pack a small emergency kit.

Pack over-the-counter medicines, prescription medications, and epi-pens in a travel first aid kit, but also consider throwing in some basic emergency supplies as well. Everyone in our family had a small flashlight in his bag as well as contact information for friends and family in-country and at home.

Call your cell phone provider.

If you plan to drive yourself around on vacation, a GPS is helpful! Getting lost in a place you don’t know and where you don’t speak the language can be dangerous. Contact your cell phone company to see what kind of roaming data plan they have available and sign up!

If you have an unlocked phone with a sim card, you can buy a sim card overseas and have “local” service. Our next iPhones will be unlocked ones.

Be sure to pack phone charging cords and adapters to suit the country you’re heading to. You don’t want to have dead batteries when you need them. Keep them charged at all times, hard to do when you’re out sightseeing, but make a point of charging every chance you get.

I loved these USB chargers (not pictured) that helped charge all our devices. I blew out an Apple brick using it with an adapter, so I’ll be going with same country chargers from now on.

Surf securely.

If you’ve ever had an online account hacked, you know that the internet poses a security risk. Consider purchasing a VPN subscription if you will need a secure internet connection overseas. What this does is create a firewall where your data is protected.

Friends of mine had their accounts hacked while overseas, so we weren’t taking any chances. Even though we had a VPN, I did not access banking or other secure data unless I had a secure connection at Jean-Marc and Michele’s.

Make an action plan for the kids.

Make sure your kids know what to do if you are separated. When you leave the hotel or apartment for the day, make sure they have the address in their pocket; a hotel business card works great for this. Be mindful of your surroundings, taking note of emergency exits and the general vibe of fellow sightseers.

It was not uncommon to find military personnel in Heathrow Airport or at major tourist attractions on our trip. This actually made us feel more comfortable, not less, but it did put me on alert. It is a crazy world we live in.

Include your contact info inside backpacks and other luggage as well. Be sure to place this INSIDE, not on the outside, for random no-gooders to see.

Pack light!

The less stuff you have on hand, the quicker you can move and the less you’ll be an easy target for pick pockets and scoundrels. Plus, honestly, it’s so much more fun when you’re not lugging a ton of stuff with you. Europe is made for small storage spaces. If you wanna go big, stay home.

Safe travels are not impossible or even all that hard. They just take a little preplanning. Not only do they provide a little extra peace of mind as you wander from home, but they keep you safe while you do it.

Comments

We traveled to England this past Spring. I put our name and hotel addresses on slips of paper in luggage tags on every bag, including hotel phone numbers and our cell phone numbers. Since we stayed at numerous hotels along our journey, I layered them in our tags and threw out the top ones when we checked out of a hotel. Keep in mind different countries have different rules for medications. My younger kids take liquid Zyrtec, 4 oz bottle. They let us out in with our medication but they would not allow us to leave the country with it because they require a prescription for it in England. Security threw it away. Leave a supply of necessary medication at home when you return, just in case.

Call credit card companies and find one that will not charge international fees. We did and it was a huge savings. Be prepared to charge everything overnight…phones, cameras, camcorders. Have multiple chargers and converter adapters. Since we did a lot of driving, we bought a GPS device specifically for England since we were unsure how our phones would work roaming. Good investment. Try to have one adult leading and one behind all kids, especially when boarding a train. Have a plan in place in case someone doesn’t make it on with the others, gets lost, etc. For England travel, research the VAT refund. You will save a fortune if you know about this before you travel there.

Carry pain medicine on the flight with you! I was on a return flight and someone else’s baby was screaming from pain. The family didn’t have any medicine with them, so the stewardesses asked me (as I was traveling with young kids) if I had any. Thankfully my children didn’t need it, but I was glad to have some on hand!

We live overseas and whenever we take any trip, even day trips, we take individual pictures of our children each morning. This way if they get lost, we have a picture to show local police. It cuts down on spending time trying to describe them or what they are wearing, especially in places where there is a language barrier. And don’t forget to take pictures of them with and without their coats/sweatshirt/whatever layers they may have on. If the worse happened and they were taken, the first thing the abductor will do is remove their outer layer especially if it’s a bright color.

My tips would be more general, not just for kids:
Make sure you carry your copies of your passports in a separate bag than the passports. It’s probably overkill, but I leave a color copy at home, then have 1-2 copies with us. (I’m a little paranoid.)

Also, depending on where you travel, you might need to still have a certain amount of time left on your passport. Make sure you know the requirements of each country you will be in.

It’s a good idea to let kids practice holding their passports and plane tickets, but under your supervision. 🙂

Hi! I'm Jessica. I believe that life with children doesn't have to overwhelm you. You can get organized & enjoy life – without going broke or freaking out. Read more here.

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